(Writing this to avoid all the miserable BS being heaped on us at this time; I’ll get to some of that at another time.  Hope some of the ladies reading this like Westerns.  Also want to say I sure hope I had a chance in a past life to be out there on the range, ropin', ridin', drinkin', and shootin'.  And maybe playing geetar at the Gem Saloon, friends with all the working gals & barkeeps.)

Well, well, well, in the aftermath of that thing called “a Western,” Brokeback Mountain, it seems a few things have become very evident.

#1 IT WON’T GO DOWN IN THE ANNALS OF GREAT WESTERNS.
That would be a la Wild Bunch, Barbarosa, Outlaw Josey Wales, Tombstone, Lonesome Dove etc.  Not even close.  I can’t see a group of guys who love Westerns saying, ”Shit. next Saturday come over, we’ll have some beers & ribs and do a Western movie fest!  We’ll watch Fist Full of Dollars, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and top it off with Brokeback Mountain!!!”  YEEHAW!!  Kiss, kiss.  Sorry to those who liked it, but Westerns are a genre that has had its fair share of abuse, and this was another example of just such abuse. Might have been a nice love story with pretty mountains, but not a good shoot ‘em up, ridin’ hard, gritty Western. 

#2 NO WESTERN SHOULD BE BASED ON ROMANCE OF ANY SORT.
Gay, straight, animal, alien, racial, group, misguided, tender, hot—NO, NO, NO!!  A little love interest, maybe, but a sizeable part of the plot, FORGET IT!  NO GOOD!
Leave that for Manhattan, where in a hip advertising firm a young professional gal, who is distraught at her workaholic husband, chases the nasty with a wild-ass artist. Ah yes, wild sex, drugs, booze, heavy discussions, but then reality hits and she goes home to the picket fence.  Or maybe L.A., where on a trip to the wine country a couple who really have nothing in common fall in love on the way, only to find they are not sure if they are gay or not, right for each other or not, can leave the past behind or not, like wine or not.
Or leave it to 18th century England or France where the guys wear tights & white powdered wigs.  Pretending they have class, prominence and virtue, all the while it turns out their main interest is chasing the nasty trying to get under those dresses with 10 layers and untie those hellacious prison undergarments, usually of other folk’s wives, maids, or boyfriends. And the gals all sit there fanning themselves, bitching about how unfulfilled they are as countesses, while sleeping on silk sheets, eating gluttonous meals, and scheming how to get laid in the back parlor. All the while the rest of society is starving, filthy, getting their heads chopped off, and drinking ale in dingy taverns once in a while with a bunch of toothless, ugly hookers walking around with their saggy tits hanging out while slinging brews & spells.
One more thing, how the hell can they all drink wine and ale constantly?  They get up, have wine, beat on the housekeepers/slaves, have wine, fight a duel, have wine, kill a fox, have wine, write poetry, have wine, get slapped, have wine, ride in a carriage, have wine, pillage a town, then have ale which is more of a beer thing.Shit, I’d be drunk all the time!!!  By 2 in the afternoon I’d be passed out on my silk sheets for the day! 

#3 COWBOYS ARE BEST PLAYED BY NON PRETTY BOYS!!!!
Tommy Lee Jones, Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Lee Van Cliff, James Coburn,  Lee J. Cobb, Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and Sam Elliot, to name a few  And of course THE BEST COWBOY ACTOR EVER,  ROBERT DUVALL.This YOUNG GUNS shit don’t fly!  Hair’s too nice, teeth too white, & ass too tight.  Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner, Kevin Cline, Emilio Estevez, Keifer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Matt Damon, Mel Gibson etc., and MOST ESPECIALLY, Heath Ledger & Jake Gyllenhaal.  Now I respect them for trying (in some cases), but Westerns need gritty, haggard, lined faces--kind of like an old, strong, but not-so-fancy rockin’ chair on the porch. And the words can’t sound sweet, no sir, but short, tough, calm, meant, and maybe with a bit of growl. Just listen to ole’ Bob Duvall, it’s like a song that hits ya’ right away. 

DEADWOOD
I recently discovered an American treasure, a monument to the Western, the king of the hill in Western TV making. Folks, this is as good as it gets.
I live in a very unregimented way, so my ability to follow a scheduled event besides be at a gig is close to nonexistent. So the only way I have caught any TV show is through the miracle of DVDs at the local Blockbuster. That’s how I have experienced The Sopranos, 24, and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Then LOW and BEHOLD, from the heavens sweeping me off my feet came DEADWOOD, the grittiest, most real, let’s-get-down-to-the-bone Western I have seen ever.
The cast is perfect, the acting is real, then more real, the look and feel are just like you’re there, and the writing is a work of art.  Folks just have to get past a bit of swearin’ (that’s the way they talked) and leave their PC attitude at the door (there was none of that then and way too much now), and listen to the beauty of they way the dialog expresses things in a way that is long gone. Just like some of the letters we hear read from back in the Civil War days, people then spoke in such an elegant way, with color flair and depth, hell, even telling you to go “*uck your horse” had poetry to it!!
Got to tell you, if you are a Western fan, a true Western fan (with no longing for only pretty scenery, great hair, where all works out so nice, with warm fuzzy romance, and polite phony characters) who yearns for the typical set-up of Good Guys/Bad Guys/Girl in your Western, COME HOME TO HEAVEN IN the series DEADWOOD. So real you can smell it, feel it, taste it, and in my book, a masterpiece that will live on with the great Westerns of all time.
Sorry to get carried away here, but what a joy it has been to find encompassing distraction from all the shit being heaped on us from every corner, it seems. I will have a ton to say about the BS that’s floating all around us later but for now...
Let’s head on down to the Gem Saloon, order a whiskey from ol’ Dan, and ask for a sit down, if we dare, with Al Swearengen himself.  The whiskey and women are cheap but plentiful, and the action will have you hooked.

Let me know if any of you watch the show, and send in a list of Western actors who are not the pretty boys--some of your favorites.